The Independent Brewers Association (IBA) is launching a new Economic Data Needs Analysis, and is seeking data from as many independent breweries to enable the IBA’s current advocacy initiatives.
The last time the IBA undertook a large-scale data analysis was in 2020, and IBA CEO Kylie Lethbridge said that the data gathered at the time has had longstanding value.
“When I first started with the IBA, there was a distinct lack of data. The organisation had gone through a period of change, and the way in which it operated was growing in style and sophistication. I had come from the background of being very data-heavy when it came to making decisions, so I scraped together some money, and had a top line economic impact analysis done based on 2020 figures. That’s the source of the statistic that we use regularly, that says our industry contributes $1.93 billion to the economy annually. That data and that research was rationalised by KPMG for our 10-year plan 18 months later,” she said.
However, it is now time to gather more data to better advocate for the changing industry. In particular, the IBA has made some recent headway on issues such as excise tax, and the new data will enable this momentum to continue.
“It’s really important that in the lead up to a federal election, where we’ve been constantly calling for help and assistance, that we not only have updated data, but as much data as we can possibly capture, and that it’s benchmarked over time.
“What we’re trying to do is illustrate that our industry had gone through a rapid period of growth, and we hit the pandemic years with the expectation that we, along with a lot of other small business around the country, were just going to click their fingers and come out of those years operating normally. Obviously, that didn’t happen, and we saw a number of other factors have an impact on brewing and the profitability associated with a beer making business,” Lethbridge said.
Though the survey link is currently only available to IBA members, Lethbridge encouraged all independent breweries, regardless of their membership status, to contribute data to the needs analysis.
“Having a full data set for the 600 or so independent breweries across the country is really important, so that we can advocate for them. Ultimately, everything that the IBA does benefits all of those businesses, whether they’re paying to be a member or not.
“Given that this is the most challenging time for our industry, and given the pain that many of our member and non-member breweries are going through, it’s really important that somebody is working for them. We would encourage anybody that that is willing to help to reach out, and we can send that survey link,” she said.
The economic impact analysis will be conducted by Urban Enterprise, and the data will be used for advocacy efforts on both a state and national level.
The survey is now open and will close on 8 October. IBA members can contribute their data here.